by Maura Rose
Kathleen swallowed. “I want you with me,” she whispered. “When I’m… the heads of families need spouses, so they can have an heir, so that the family continues. Rather old fashioned, I know. But it’s how it goes. Would you want… that is…”
“Kathleen McCourt, are you proposing to me?” Brian teased her, his hands falling to her hips.
Kathleen blushed, looking away. “If… I mean it’s not formal, I’m just saying…”
“How about this.” Brian pulled her into him, pressing them together, then reached up and gently traced his fingertips along the curve of her face. “We get through this, and then we’ll see where we are. What’s important right now is getting you on the throne where you belong.”
“On my throne, huh?”
“Exactly.” He tapped her nose with his finger. “Knew I picked a smart one. You’re meant to be something, Kath. I believe that. Let’s get you where you belong, and that’s away from her.”
Kathleen just about melted. “I love you.”
Brian stared at her for a moment and she felt like someone had dunked cold water on her head. “Unless—I’m sorry, you probably don’t want—I didn’t mean—”
“A sort-of proposal and a love declaration, you’re just piling it on today. Do you have roses and chocolate too?”
“Very funny.”
Brian kissed her softly, stifling the other arguments piling up in her throat. “You’re my girl, Kath. I love you. And I’m gonna help you get what’s yours. You’re stuck with me.”
“Good. Because you’re stuck with me.” Brian was the first person who’d truly made her feel happy and she wasn’t ever going to let him go.
Brian grinned at her. “Now. Let’s go kick your mother’s arse, shall we?”
Kath laughed. “Battle strategy first, Tex. And probably sleep.”
In the same bed. Hmm…
Actually, neither of them was probably going to get a lot of sleep that night.
Chapter Nine
After talking with Sean and detailing their plans, Kathleen joined Brian up in the guest bedroom.
It was going to be a hell of a day tomorrow.
She explained in detail what her mother had done—dragging her by the hair, practically starving her—and Brian just about lost his mind.
If he was the lucky bastard who saw Kathleen’s mother tomorrow, he was going to make her pay. And pay badly.
But that was for afterwards.
For right now, Kathleen clearly needed some reassurance. “What if I’m wrong?” she asked pacing back and forth in the small but homey guest bedroom. “What if the lieutenants don’t support me? What if they’re angry that I’m trying to start a coup? What if John is more ambitious than I thought? What if…”
“Hey, love, hey.” Brian caught her by the shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll just talk with them calmly, they’ll see you have the backing of two other families, and it’ll be fine. Who else is your mother going to turn to? She’s burnt all her other bridges.”
The plan was to try and do this as civilly as possible. Nobody wanted a war. Just getting the lieutenants to agree to support Kathleen’s claim, and then organizing a meeting with her mother, and letting their show of strength speak for itself.
Hopefully then all violence could be avoided.
“I just know her, and I just…” Kathleen shook her head. “I’ve been scared of her all my life. And I can’t trust that I won’t be scared now.”
“You won’t. I’ll be there. You’re going to be safe with me, always. Do you trust me on that?”
Kathleen gave him a frail smile. “Yes.”
“I’ll be there for you. Don’t worry.”
A knock came at the door. “Come in,” Kathleen called.
Brian turned as Sean entered. His jaw was clenched. “We’ve just had word. Your mother’s telling everyone that we kidnapped you—she’s declaring war.”
“What?” All of the color drained out of Kathleen’s face. “How’d she even know I was with you?”
“I guess your brother took pictures or something to prove that he’d seen you with Brian, someone else in the family recognized him as one of our runners.” Sean’s voice was tight. “We won’t be able to follow the plan. We’ll do a raid at dawn instead.”
Oh, fuck. That was intense.
“I’ll come with,” Kathleen said. “I’ve never led a raid before, though.”
“You won’t be going anywhere,” Sean replied. “You’re too valuable. You need to stay here where you’re safe. Sokolov and I will monitor from his headquarters. My brother will lead the raid itself.”
“Then I’ll go,” Brian blurted out before he could stop himself.
Kathleen tugged on his arm. “Brian, no.”
“I have to. Someone has to make sure that woman can’t hurt you again.” He was going to be there and he was going to take care of things. He knew how to handle a gun, now. He’d had to learn it as a part of being a runner. And he’d gotten into plenty of scraps back home. He could look after himself.
Sean nodded. “Fine by me. Kathleen, we’ll need to go over weak points. We want to take them out quickly.”
Kathleen still looked pale, but nodded.
It looked like they were going to be in for a long night.
None of them got any sleep, really. Brian snatched a couple of hours at the end with Kathleen, curled up in bed with her in his arms, her head on his shoulder. It wasn’t how he’d imagined his first night in a proper bedroom with her going. He’d imagined sex, for one thing, and a lot more sleep for another, maybe sleeping in and then having a cozy breakfast.
But just having her in his arms was enough, in the end. He slept better than he had in months, Kathleen a warm weight against him.
It felt like he had just closed his eyes when he was opening them again as he was being shaken awake by Patrick Donaghue. Brian nodded, letting Patrick know he was up, and then carefully slid out from underneath Kathleen so that he wouldn’t disturb her.
They suited up, got their gear, and moved in the pre-dawn light, in white vans decorated to look like garbage or delivery services. Brian hated to admit it and would’ve lied if asked, but his heart was pounding in his chest like a war drum. He’d never done something like this before. He knew that he should probably feel bad, but instead, all he felt was vindication.
The person who’d been hurting his girl for so long was finally going to get what was coming to her.
Whatever the McCourts had been expecting, it definitely wasn’t for the Donaghues to be moving so quickly. Or for them to have such intimate knowledge of the area. Or for the Sokolovs to be with them. Brian moved quickly through the house once they were in, heading up the stairs. Kathleen had said that her mother spent the majority of her time in her office.
He didn’t bother with knocking. He just kicked the damn door down.
There were two people in there: an older woman who looked quite a lot like Kathleen, and a man, young, with a thunderous expression on his face and the same nose and eyes as Kathleen. Must be one of her brothers.
“You filthy—” The rest of what McCourt was going to say was lost—Brian saw the gun in her hand and fired.
He hit her, a clean shot, but then he heard a yell from the younger McCourt and fire exploded in his side, searing into him.
He’d never been shot before, and he wasn’t prepared for the pain that came with it. He opened his mouth to speak, found that he couldn’t. He tasted salt—or was that iron?
Someone came up behind him, firing, he saw the brother fall… he hoped to hell that was Pat and not John…
“Stay with me, Brian.” It was Patrick Donaghue. “I can’t go telling the new head of the McCourt family that her boyfriend’s gotten himself murdered.”
Kathleen. She would be upset. After he’d promised her that he would be all right.
He wished he could see her.
The world swam around him and went black.
Chap
ter Ten
Kathleen couldn’t stop pacing.
She hated that she had to be left behind. Hated that she had to sit here and wait while Brian put himself in danger because she was the heir, she was the important one, she had to stay back…
Brian was the only person she had she could trust, the only person she was truly close with. The only person she loved. Her brothers were distant. Her mother was—well. Kate was a friend but she rarely saw her. She had no one else.
She couldn’t lose him.
“Sit down before you wear a hole in the floor,” Bridget advised.
Kathleen tried not to glare. Bridget was a bit abrupt but she meant well. Kathleen knew it was just her own nerves making everything sound worse in her head.
Sinead, Bridget’s sister-in-law, the wife of Patrick, was over in the kitchen making some bread, keeping them company. Her husband was in the raid as well. She had to be nervous. Kathleen suspected that was why she was making bread.
“You’re Kathleen?” Sinead asked, clearly trying to take some of the tension from the air.
“Yes.”
“What did you think of my notes?” Sinead asked.
“Your notes?”
“On your book.”
Kathleen stopped pacing and stared at her. “Your notes? I thought…”
“I’m a huge bookworm,” Sinead explained. “I run a blog where I post book reviews. Along with my baking adventures. Brian asked if I could give some notes since he felt his might not be helpful to you.”
“They were very helpful, thank you. Yours were the ones in the blue pen?”
“Yes, Brian did his in red.” Sinead smiled at her. “Your book is very good, I loved the story and characters. I think you could really do something with it.”
Kathleen was touched, and surprised. “Thank you.”
“You’ll keep at it once you’re in charge of the family, right?”
“Well, everyone needs a hobby, don’t they?” Bridget said—and then a strange look crossed her face.
“…Mrs. Donaghue?” Kathleen said. It didn’t feel quite right to call her Bridget just yet, even though they were the same age.
Sinead paused in her bread kneading, looking over. “Bridget?”
Bridget gave a little gasp and looked down at the floor. Kathleen followed her gaze—and saw the clear liquid spilled all under Bridget’s chair.
“Oh, fuck,” she blurted out.
“I think my water just broke,” Bridget said weakly.
Sinead, to her credit, didn’t pause for a moment. She immediately plopped the bread into the bread maker, slapped the lid closed, turned it on, then washed her hands. “Kathleen, please go into the security room and inform the men that we need a driver for the hospital.”
“Uh, yes.”
They got Bridget into the car, where she was squeezing both Kathleen and Sinead’s hands rather tightly. “Welcome to the family,” Sinead noted wryly as the car pulled out and they headed for the hospital.
“I suppose so,” Kathleen replied.
If there was one thing the labor was good for, it sure was distracting. Bridget was absolutely furious that Sean wasn’t there. “He has to negotiate with Sokolov over the war, you told him to go!” Sinead tried.
That didn’t really work with a woman in the middle of labor pain. “I’m going to kill him,” Bridget hissed. “He did this to me!”
“You wanted a kid, Bridge.”
“So?!”
“I’ll just wait outside?” Kathleen suggested.
“Contact Sean,” Sinead advised. “He’s going to raise hell if he’s not here in time.”
Sinead went with Bridget into the room while Kathleen went out into the hallway to call Sean.
“This better be important,” Sean answered.
“It’s Kathleen,” she replied. “I hate to interrupt but your wife’s gone into labor. We’re at the hospital right now, Sinead’s with her.”
There was a long pause, and then she heard someone laughing. “When it rains it pours, eh, Donaghue?” someone with a Russian accent laughed.
“Very funny, Ivan.” Sean came back on the line. “I’ll be there in a minute. Raid’s almost over, Brian took your mother down.”
Kathleen knew that she should feel bad for that. She should mourn the death of the woman who raised her.
But that woman had also manipulated her and kept her under lock and key and had literally thrown her into a room and tried to keep her prisoner and marry her off.
This wasn’t the goddamn dark ages. And she deserved better from people. Especially from a mother.
So she felt nothing. Nothing but a distant sense of relief.
“And Brian?”
There was another pause. “He took a hit,” Sean said at last.
Kathleen’s heart leapt into her throat. No, no, no… “Is he all right?”
“We think he’ll pull through.”
“You think?”
“He’s tough. We have a doctor taking care of him, one of the best.”
Mob families had doctors that they would go to for help when someone was injured in a way that couldn’t easily be explained to the cops. Usually the doctor was a morgue technician or something of the kind. Recently, a lot of mob doctors were also owners of medical marijuana shops.
Go figure.
“Can I come and see him?”
“What hospital are you at? I’ll give you the address he’s at when I get there.”
Probably best that it wasn’t done over a phone line, just in case. Kathleen gave him the address and then waited impatiently, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. Brian had to pull through, he had to. She wouldn’t accept any other option. She was going to spend the rest of her life with him and that meant he had to stick around.
She couldn’t do this alone.
Sean looked disheveled when he ran in. “She’s in there,” Kathleen said, indicating. “But, I have to warn you, she’s not happy with you.”
“I’m sure she’s not. She’ll be giving me hell about this the entire time.” Sean grinned at her, then passed her a piece of paper. “Here, give this to the driver outside. It’s to prove that you’re who you say you are and that I sent you. He’ll take you to Brian.”
“Good luck!” Kathleen called as Sean headed for the room.
He was going to need it.
The driver took the piece of paper from her, nodded, and drove her through the city to the back of a building. She wasn’t sure what the shop in front was supposed to be, but going through the back there was just one simple room set up with a patient bed and all the rest of the hospital equipment decked out.
A couple of men were standing guard—either Sokolov or Donaghue or both, she wasn’t sure—and sitting in the hospital bed, all patched up…
“Brian!” she blurted out, hurrying over.
“Hey, love,” he rasped.
He was wrapped up all in bandages, had a black eye, and looked pale. But he was all right. He was alive.
Kathleen crossed over to him, taking his hand. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she whispered. “What happened?”
“Your youngest brother got a shot in,” Brian admitted. “Pat. I’m afraid… I think… I’m sorry, love, I think our Pat retaliated.”
“He turned me into my mother and mocked me and tried to kill you,” Kathleen spat back. “He’s no brother of mine.”
“Didn’t peg you for the ruthless one in this relationship,” Brian chuckled. He squeezed her hand. “I’m all right. Doctor says I’ll mend up. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you these next few months. The lieutenants surrendered easily, your brother John says he’s happy to help you regain order so long as you don’t make him do the bookkeeping.”
“Like I said, he’s got no ambition.”
“But you do.”
Kathleen blushed. “Apparently.”
Brian cleared his throat. “So… my actions were very useful today, Sean said. Patrick reported it all to h
im. First thing Sean tells me when I come to is that he’s promoting me to lieutenant. I’ve been a good runner this whole time, and I guess I impressed him on the raid.”
“It’s nothing less than what you deserve.”
The corner of Brian’s mouth turned upwards into a smile. “I was hoping… it might give me the chance… Bridget explained to me, when I first started out here, how the hierarchy works. How it can be a little old-fashioned. And that includes… social status. Now that I’m a lieutenant… I can ask you this without starting up a scandal.”
Brian reached over to a small table, where there was a cup of water, a small bottle of medication—presumably some kind of prescription—and…
Kathleen’s breath caught. “When did you get that?”
Brian grimaced. “Well, technically I’m borrowing it from Patrick until we can go to a store and pick out a proper one for you.” He held out the ring. “But I wanted to have a ring to propose to you with.”
Kathleen smiled, holding out her hand. “Yes.” Of course, yes. She’d wanted to marry him before all of this mess and nothing that had happened had changed that.
“We might have to go to Ireland for the wedding,” Brian warned her. “My mum will kill me if I get married and she’s not there.”
“And I’m sure I’ll lie about what I do for a living.”
Brian tried to laugh but it turned into a cough. “That too.”
“You need to rest.” There would be time to plan later. Right now, she was just glad that he was all right.
“And you need to go greet your new subjects,” Brian teased.
“Later.” There would be time to deal with that once Brian was all right. She just needed to spend a little more time with him, right now. Make sure it was real and that he was really okay.
She held his hand and kissed him softly on the cheek. She was free, she was in control, she had her kingdom—and her consort.
She couldn’t wait to see what they could accomplish together.
Epilogue
Brian took the phone away from Kath. If he didn’t, she’d stare at it all day refreshing the screen, checking the numbers. “Nope, cut that out.”
